Progress since then has come in steps, and not without debate. One recurring question is whether synthetic biology should be treated as a single subject, or whether the sheer variety of techniques it covers makes a single approach unworkable. In 2024, the Parties agreed to develop a dedicated action plan to help countries build the skills, access the technologies and share the knowledge they need to engage with synthetic biology.

Alongside the action plan, the Parties set up a new group of experts to take stock of synthetic biology - what it could offer, where it was heading, and what risks came with the latest developments. The group was asked to weigh all of this against the Convention's three core aims and the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and to advise on how capacity-building, technology transfer and knowledge-sharing should feature in the new action plan. Its work was informed by written submissions and by an open online forum on synthetic biology.

That forum met online from 23 February to 6 March 2026, drawing 347 participants from 64 countries. Only few of the participants were affiliated with biosafety-related organisations, namely Delphine Beeckman (Belgian Biosafety Professionals), Patrick Rüdelsheim (EBSA), Jan-Wolfhard Kellmann (ZKBS -German Central Committee on Biological Safety) and Lúcia de Souza (PRRI / ANBio - Associação Nacional de Biossegurança — Brazilian Biosafety Association)

Chaired by Martin Batič of Slovenia, the 2026 forum looked at what synthetic biology can contribute to the Convention's goals and to the Kunming-Montreal Framework. Contributors from governments, research, industry and civil society pointed to a broad range of applications: a recombinant alternative to horseshoe-crab blood used in medical testing, semi-synthetic antimalarial medicine, new ways of capturing CO₂, environmental DNA and biosensors for monitoring nature, engineered microbes that clean up pollution or break down plastic, gene-edited crops, gene drives aimed at saving endangered species, and bio-based manufacturing that could replace some extractive industries. Many of these were linked to specific targets in the Framework.

At the same time, plenty of participants urged caution: most of these applications are still at an early, proof-of-concept stage; real-world benefits for biodiversity at scale are still rare; and releasing organisms into the open environment is not the same kind of risk as using them in a closed industrial setting. Civil society voices stressed the need to separate hype from evidence, to ask who actually benefits and on what terms, and to insist on strong biosafety rules, fair access to technology and equitable sharing of benefits from digital sequence information. Participants from developing countries highlighted the practical hurdles to turning research into useful products, and pointed to capacity-building and national regulatory readiness as essential foundations.

The forum then turned to what has changed technologically since its previous meeting in 2023. The most striking development, contributors said, is the way artificial intelligence and automation have begun to merge with synthetic biology - particularly through AI-driven "biofoundries" that can design, build and test new biological systems with much less human intervention. This is speeding up work on novel proteins, metabolic pathways and crop traits, with possible benefits for sustainable farming, pollution control and skills development. Other promising developments included microbial communities engineered to upcycle plastics, more precise gene-editing techniques to produce crops that withstand multiple stresses, synthetic viruses used to study plant diseases, and alternative proteins that could ease pressure on land. The same AI-driven acceleration, however, is also a serious concern. It opens the door to faster development of harmful organisms and makes detection harder.

Gene drives drew particularly close scrutiny, with contributors flagging the risk of unintended knock-on effects in ecosystems, gene transfer to species that were not the intended target, spread across borders, public distrust, and the possibility of deliberate misuse. Other worries included the continued dominance of herbicide-tolerant traits in agricultural biotechnology and their documented effects on biodiversity, the use of digital sequence information without fair benefit-sharing, the risk that synthetic substitutes will displace livelihoods that depend on biodiversity, and a regulatory trend - illustrated by the European Union's approach to new genomic techniques - that, in the view of some contributors, focuses on risk while paying too little attention to assessing benefits.

All of this is precisely why biosafety professionals need to be at the table. The forum showed how quickly the field is moving - AI-driven design, gene drives, environmental release of engineered organisms, digital sequence information - and how much of the debate now hinges on judgements about risk, containment and real-world consequences. These are the questions biosafety practitioners deal with every day. Without their input, discussions risk drifting between, on one side, enthusiasm that underestimates what can go wrong, and on the other, caution that is not grounded in what is actually feasible to manage. Equally, biosafety professionals cannot do their job well if they are not following these developments closely: the techniques, the applications and the regulatory thinking around them are shifting faster than any single national framework can keep up with. Engaging in forums like this one is how the profession stays current, how it shapes the standards it will later be asked to apply, and how it makes sure that the precautionary approach the Convention called for in 2010 remains workable in practice.

For more information on CBD activities on Synthetic Biology: https://www.cbd.int/synbio

Or contact the author: Patrick.rudelsheim@3BIO.EU

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of EBSA, its Board or its members, nor of any other organisation with which the author is affiliated.